March 27, 2010

Interestingly, Texas high school students were outscoring California high school students way back in 1960, just as Texan 8th graders consistently beat Californian 8th graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in recent years.

After Sputnik, the federal government funded in 1960 a vast survey of 15-year-olds' "aptitudes and achievements" called Project TALENT. Across the country in over 1300 high schools, five percent of all high school students, plus a bunch of dropouts they rounded up, took two dozen tests over four half-days.

They gave almost 400,000 students two dozen different tests. This was an era when psychometricians loved to give a wide variety of tests -- think of in The Right Stuff how the scientists loved to try out anything they could think of on the applicants for astronaut training. Since then, testing has tended to narrow as the dominance of the g-Factor has shown that two days worth of testing is redundant.

The overall scores would be a combination of aptitude and achievement, so not exactly like IQ, but no doubt reasonably well-correlated with IQ.

I suspect that more Mexican-American 15-year-olds were enrolled in high school in California than in Texas in 1960, so this might be a biasing factor. Yet, both states were predominantly white in 1960.

One thing to keep in mind is that Project TALENT mostly measured students who were born during the Baby Bust of WWII rather than the famous Baby Boomers, the first of whom were 14 in 1960.

The fact that Texans scored about 1/10th of a standard deviation above Californians in 1960 suggests to me that the more famous accomplishments of Californians in science and technology (e.g., aeronautics) in the first half of the 20th Century were rather narrowly based demographically. In contrast, perhaps Texas's oil industry, which began in 1901 and sped up with the huge find in 1930, brought in to Texas a broad influx of technically skilled mechanics, engineers, and entrepreneurs, especially during the Depression. Anyway, it's interesting that as far back as 1960, there wasn't much evidence in Texas for the educational lassitude that afflicted much of the South outside of Virginia.

IQs by State, 1960 -- You probably remember the notorious "Democratic states have higher IQs" hoax from last May. Well, here, thanks to Prof. Henry Harpending of the U. of Utah anthropology dept., might be the closest thing to a national sample of IQ scores ever: the Project Talent database of 366,000 9th-12th grade students. Unfortunately, it is 44 years years old. Nonetheless, it correlates reasonably with 2003 NAEP 8th grade achievement test scores (here are the 2003 scores). As you can see, in this list of kids' IQs back in 1960, of the top 10 smartest states, in 2000, Bush and Gore each won five. So, we're back to my original conclusion: red states and blue states are similar in average IQ, as are, on average, Republican and Democratic voters.

Some caveats: These IQ scores are set with the national mean of the 366,000 high school students equal to 100 and the standard deviation set to 15. But, keep in mind that we are only beginning to explore this huge database, so take everything with a grain of salt. [These scores are for all students across all races.]

There weren't adequate sample sizes from Alaska, Washington DC, and South Carolina, and I excluded South Dakota because the result was too different from North Dakota. (I think something might be confused about both South Carolina and South Dakota -- I'll try to find out more.)

Harpending also looked at whites only data (unfortunately, the majority of participants don't have a race recorded) with the smartest whites (which I suspect is all that white liberals care about -- feeling smarter than white conservatives) were (in descending order): Connecticut, Montana, Nevada (I bet that's not true anymore!), Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Virginia. The dumbest whites were in (in descending order): Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

The overall results by state in 1960 follow Daniel Patrick Moynihan's insight that the easiest way to improve social indicators in your state is to jack up your entire state, slide wheels under it, and haul it north up close to the Canadian border.

62 comments:

Captain Jack Aubrey
said...

This is off-topic, but I like this column in the NYT about how the "far right" is doomed due to demographics: when they're not telling us that we're racists for thinking that we're doomed demographically, they're telling us that...we're doomed demographically.

You may want “your country back,” but you can’t have it. That sound you hear is the relentless, irrepressible march of change.

Harpending also looked at whites only data (unfortunately, the majority of participants don't have a race recorded) with the smartest whites (which I suspect is all that white liberals care about -- feeling smarter than white conservatives) were (in descending order): Connecticut, Montana, Nevada (I bet that's not true anymore!), Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Virginia. The dumbest whites were in (in descending order): Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

Some posters will no doubt argue that the "smarter" states namely etc, have a high proportion of "more European" whites. However, historically, the dumbest states AlSO have a high proportion of northern whites- from Ireland and Britain in particular, as Sowell notes in "Black Rednecks, White Liberals". This undercuts the claim floated by some elsewhere of the importance of reputed "Nordic" background in explaining scores. Ultra white Utah, is beaten out by "less advanced" New York and Joisy, home of a large number of Eastern and Southern European whites. Interestingly enough in #3 Connecticut, Italians, a southern European people, are the largest white group.

Even though the state IQ thing in 2004 was a hoax, it was definitely true that average education level (all races) strongly correlated with voting for Kerry. Kerry won 11 of the 17 states with the most college graduates; Bush was 16 of the 17 with the fewest.

As to IQ in 1960, if the bottom states for white IQs were Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky; then this would support Thomas Sowell's contention that traditional southern culture is anti-intellectual. And anyone wanting to talk about HBD today needs to avoid talking wistfully about how smart but misunderstood southerners were back then.

As a native Southerner born the same year as the Project TALENT testing, a significant portion of my education took place in buildings built before air conditioning was commercially viable in public schools. I assume that nearly 100% of the Southern students tested also lacked that 'luxury' throughout their educational careers.

For a significant period of the school year (anytime before mid-October and after mid-April) the combination of stifling heat and high humidity severely hampered classroom performance, just as it so effectively stunted Southern economic progress until the latter part of the 20th century. I contend that lowered the Project TALENT scores far more than any supposed 'traditional anti-intellectual culture'.

If you doubt my theory, try to imagine listening to a nice white lady drone on about the Missouri Compromise or the quadratic equation while sitting motionless in an uncomfortable metal desk in an 88-degree sauna 30 minutes after you've eaten lunch.

This comment is for Too Tall Jones. Northern Europeans are smarter than Southern Europeans(I am extending the Northern and Southern Europeans to include the eastern part of Europe). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article697134.ece

"Even though the state IQ thing in 2004 was a hoax, it was definitely true that average education level (all races) strongly correlated with voting for Kerry. Kerry won 11 of the 17 states with the most college graduates; Bush was 16 of the 17 with the fewest."

My family lived in the Antelope Valley of southern California when I was small, amongst many scientists and engineers in aerospace. Then we moved to Orange County, where we lived among a generally uneducated blue collar population. Those people have since been forced into the Inland Empire but indeed the technology developing portion of the population was pretty small.

To me this is proof that there is something deeply wrong with our educational system. It shouldn't be too surprising that Democrats do so well with college graduates when you realize how many college professors are left-wing.

Before the spread of air conditioning, British Foreign Office workers got the same bump in pay for enduring Tropical Duty for manning the British consulate in Houston as they would have gotten for assignment to Lagos.

"Even though the state IQ thing in 2004 was a hoax, it was definitely true that average education level (all races) strongly correlated with voting for Kerry. Kerry won 11 of the 17 states with the most college graduates; Bush was 16 of the 17 with the fewest."

Something is odd. I took black and white mean IQs at 85 100, and the %black for Mississippi and Alabama in 1960 to predict IQ. Actual Alabama IQ is 2.2 points lower than that. Actual Miss. IQ is 3.2 points higher.

Alternately taking black IQ at 85 and the 1960 IQ scores I got white IQ at 97 and 105 for 'bama and Miss. respectively.

A 105 average for white Mississippians seems suspect, but far more believable. Either way, census percentages and holding black IQ constant across the US seems more reasonable if race is largely missing from the dataset.

Other races are tiny in both states, so they have no effect. Anyone know if Alabama whites are way dumb compared to Mississippi whites?

However, historically, the dumbest states AlSO have a high proportion of northern whites- from Ireland...

Ah yes, Ireland. The flower of white civilization. Why I remember from history class how sought-after Irish immigrants were. They well-known for intelligence, temperance, and civil behavior. heh.

Back in 1960 Southern states had much larger black populations and Northern states much smaller ones than at present. The IQ scores from 1960 reflect that difference and likely nothing else. Try regressing the IQ scores against the percentage of the population that was African American for each state in 1960, and you will find that that single variable accounts for almost all of the variation.

RE: College Graduate States in 2004Here are the rankings by states of percent college graduates from the 2003 American Community Survey from the Census Bureau:http://www.epodunk.com/top10/collegeDiploma/

The top 17 (one-third of states with DC): DC,MA,MD,CO,VA,NH,CT,NJ,MN,VT,KA,CA,NY,WA,UT,DE,IL

All but Colorado, Virginia, Kansas and Utah voted for Kerry, and the former two went for Obama in 2008. The GOP really needs to work on the Red states that are improving their education levels (North Carolina and New Mexico).

Too Tall Jones: as even British Islanders would attest, their roots lie in Iberia and (as recent research has discovered) Turkey or Iraq or wherever they invented farming. The Nordic/Germanic Invader content ranges on average from 42% in parts of England down to single digits in the Celtic boonies. Britain's IQ is measurably lower than, say, Germany and even Italy. Lynn? Vanhanen? Oppenheimer? I thought on this site we had this stuff down cold.

"Other races are tiny in both states, so they have no effect. Anyone know if Alabama whites are way dumb compared to Mississippi whites?"

Are you seriously asking this question? Have you visited either state? Mississippi is far more backwards than Alabama. There is really nothing endearing about Mississppi whatsoever.... Rural Alabama has nicer scenery even. Rural Alabama is rather backwards I'll admit but it at least has a few bigger cities.. All of Mississippi's major universities are also lower quality than Alabama's. In Alabama we always say "Thank God for Mississppi."

"Too Tall Jones: as even British Islanders would attest, their roots lie in Iberia and (as recent research has discovered) Turkey or Iraq or wherever they invented farming. The Nordic/Germanic Invader content ranges on average from 42% in parts of England down to single digits in the Celtic boonies. Britain's IQ is measurably lower than, say, Germany and even Italy. Lynn? Vanhanen? Oppenheimer? I thought on this site we had this stuff down cold."

Even if "Nordic" Europeans have an IQ on average just a few points higher than those of Southern/Atlantic Euros, does that really make that big of a difference or is it in any way significant to HBD the same way the black-white or black-asian IQ gap is? In fact, some Northern and Southern countries have the exact same average IQ! (Italy and Germany-both 102 according to Wikipedia's article on the Wealth of Nations) Perhaps the only reason this slight discrepancy exists is because the Atlantic/Southern European nations have always had a more significant underclass which is depressing the IQ for everyone in that particular group? And something else to consider: Southern and Atlantic European civilizations, supposed current lower IQ notwithstanding, have historically formed the backbone of Western Civilization. England, France, Spain, and Italy are far more historically relevant/innovative than Germany or Sweden. One might even argue that historically the Nordic nations have lacked creativity as well. So is there really much of a point to all this pointless touting of Nordicism by various commentators?

But are they Northern Italians or southern ones? Northern Italians tend to be more like Northern Europeans genetically while Southern Italians tend to be more like Middle Easterners.

You probably should spend less time at the blog of Dennis McAuster, who doesn't understand the difference between Italian emigrant outflow data and US immigrant inflow data.

A very large majority of "Italian-Americans" are of "southern" ancestry, since, as all American sources of immigrant origins tells us, the vast majority of Italian immigrants to the USA (not Brazil or Argentina) during the "Great Wave" were from the south. So, no, in places like CT or NY or wherever in the USA, you are not going to be finding many "Lombards."

And, Lynn and McAuster need to know that the (currently tested)Italian group that shows the greatest affinity to "Middle Eastern" genetics are Tuscans.

The person identifying himself/herself as "low, low, low Irish IQ" seems to believe that Italians have a high IQ. Can they then explain why in this 1990 newspaper article it says that over 20% of Italian-Americans don't finish high school in New York City? The only groups less likely to finish high school in NYC are blacks and Hispanics.

Mr. Too Tall Jones: The British people are mainly Celtic/Pictic (as verified by modern DNA studies) and Alpine rather than Nordic in appearance. The areas dominated by more Nordic peoples (Germans and Scandinavians)such as the Upper Midwest do well in the IQ category. As for California, even in the good old days California was more like Oklahoma outside the major metropolitan areas. Now its Oklahoma crossed with Tijuana with a strong trend toward the latter. Buenas noches, y'all!

They gave almost 400,000 students two dozen different tests. This was an era when psychometricians loved to give a wide variety of tests

I graduated from high school in 1960. I wanted a summer job so I went to the Unemployment Department in downtown Washington DC. (Or was it the Employment Department, later it became the Human Resources Department and several other names).

Before they would talk to me about a job they told me I had to be tested. I made an appointment and took tests for two days. There were plenty of paper and pencil tests but also a number of performance tests with physical objects. I know from this experience where the phrase - square peg in a round hole - comes from.

At yet another appointment they told be that I was qualified for every job they had but alas they had no jobs. There's a lesson here.

I'm assuming that's (Ala) not (O)bama. Mississippi is poorer than Alabama, not necessarily dumber. Going from the straight comparison with average white and black IQ and demographic weighting, there's about a 5 point IQ gap in Mississippi's favor. Why were Alabaman whites or blacks or both dimmer?

Here's a question I haven't seen addressed: to what degree is the ethnic migration a random sampling of the host country or area? A lot of the Chinese immigrants who started filling Harvard in the eighties were descendants of highly educated refugees from the struggle between the Nationalists and Communists, as I recall. There are probably a lot of thick-headed peasants back in China who are still in the rice paddies.

Also, while Germany is undoubtedly one of the most intellectually accomplished countries in history, is Texas full of the descendants of chemistry professors from Berlin, or farmers from some tiny town in Bavaria whose crop went bad? I'd like someone with more knowledge of the history to comment.

You can't assume an ethnic stock is some pure essence that remains the same over time; it's subject to selection pressures over time. Look at the way the fierce Vikings evolved into the tame feminist Scandinavians.

"Even though the state IQ thing in 2004 was a hoax, it was definitely true that average education level (all races) strongly correlated with voting for Kerry. Kerry won 11 of the 17 states with the most college graduates; Bush was 16 of the 17 with the fewest."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy#Examples

Couldn't this be applied to just about all of the good host's recent posts? Under what conditions can we say that any state-based numbers are meaningful? What are general conditions of common distributions required for the aggregated numbers to be meaningful? The link only uses a simple discrete, binomial (counter) example.

I've always thought there should be more discussion of German-Americans on this blog. They've been the largest ethnic group in the U.S. for much of American history, and they form, I believe, the broad core of white intelligence in the country. Interestingly, German-Americans are almost completely absent from the dumbest states (Southeast).

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article697134.ece

It's surprising to me that the English aren't as smart as their close cousins the Germans and Dutch. Too much intermarriage with their Celtic neighbors?

Even though the state IQ thing in 2004 was a hoax, it was definitely true that average education level (all races) strongly correlated with voting for Kerry. Kerry won 11 of the 17 states with the most college graduates; Bush was 16 of the 17 with the fewest.

A) Middling whites are more conservative than the smarter ones probably, in part, because they associate with, live near, and are related to people most affected by government incentives to sit on your ass. Middle and lower middle class whites understand that, while they may not have great jobs, that the work they do is important, and that a lot of their co-workers, minorities especially, wouldn't bother showing up if the government paid them enough to stay home and watch Oprah. Conservative whites actually work in more genuinely integrated workplaces than liberals do, too.

B) Upper class whites are mostly used to being around people, whatever their race, who learn because they love to learn. They don't spend a lot of time around minorities who are simply incapable of learning. While they may obsess about the oppressed minorities, they really haven't much experience with the fact that, believe it or not, there are actually poor whites.

C) Historically, the form of "welfare" most favored by whites has been the labor union. Labor unions, however you feel about them and whatever their weaknesses, at least are intended to reward people who work, or who did work. Middle class whites, believe it or not, actually like to work, and define themselves in part by their job.

D) Middle class and blue collar whites understand that what they earn with their own labor, however unsatisfactory, is far more than what they can get from a government welfare check.

E) White men, most of all, understand that women are attracted to a man who can provide, and that women have no respect for a man who "provides" by collecting a government welfare check. White men understand this.

F) Speaking of brain drain, I have often wondered how much the Republican Party suffers because so many smart, conservative whites live in liberal states or congressional districts, drawn there by the better jobs. A smart, successful conservative isn't as likely to get into politics if he lives in a liberal district. A smart, white conservative living in California can't run for a congressional seat in Alabama. I think the Republican Party suffers from this a bit.

"The dumbest whites were in (in descending order): Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky."

Wasn't it you, Steve, who displayed a map of the McCain vote overlayed with a Scots-Irish ancestry map and noted that his support was highest in Scots-Irish heavy areas? And wouldn't these same Scots-Irish often be found in these low-White IQ states? Jeepers, I'm an idiot compared to many of the commenters here and I'm not even American but it seems highly intuitive to me that the Cali-Texan White IQ gap and other intra-White IQ disparities are largely explained by the amount of high-IQ Germanic settlers an area has, notwithstanding Too Tall's unscientific claims.

I'm Canadian, and the USA-Canada IQ gap, which IIRC is one point, would largely be explained by Canada being populated by Scots and Irish; there are relatively few Canadians of English origin.

Yeah, we folks of Irish heritage aren't the swiftest, but this is mitigated by a couple of factors: we can be trusted, as evidenced by the extremely high percentage of Irish cops now and in the past, and by our hospitality: you don't hear about Scottish hospitality, or German hospitality. As Steve (I think) has noted, people don't bank with the Swiss because they are super friendly or smart, they bank with them because they can be trusted. We also have an innate sense of justice - the basic concept of right and wrong - that is second to none. It wasn't Che Guevara's Hispanic blood that boiled when he rode his motorcycle through South America, it was his Irish blood, and the rest, as they say, is history.

"Before the spread of air conditioning, British Foreign Office workers got the same bump in pay for enduring Tropical Duty for manning the British consulate in Houston as they would have gotten for assignment to Lagos."

Similarly Dutch Engineers working for Shell Oil got the same "undesirable location" pay for working in Houston as they did for going to India.

"Even though the state IQ thing in 2004 was a hoax, it was definitely true that average education level (all races) strongly correlated with voting for Kerry. Kerry won 11 of the 17 states with the most college graduates; Bush was 16 of the 17 with the fewest."

This really bugs me.

How much difference is there between the lowest and highest in terms of percent with college degrees? Does the lowest have 20% and the highest have 25%? Makes me wonder if that extra 5% is mostly females with mostly nonsense degrees which don't make them any smarter but do make them more likely to be unmarried and more liberal.

"the (currently tested)Italian group that shows the greatest affinity to "Middle Eastern" genetics are Tuscans."

Is that based on uniparental (Y chromosome or mtDNA) markers or whole genome testing? I am aware of the uniparental marker study showing Near Eastern markers among ancient Etruscans with some continuity to the present, but that is not necessarily indicative of total ancestry composition. Thus, it doesn't necessarily mean that Tuscans are overall the closest Italian population to Near Easterners.

FWIW, Southern Italians as a group still fall within the European cluster in autosomal studies. They may be closer to Middle Eastern populations than Northern European populations are, but that does not necessarily mean that Southern Italians are genetically closer to Near Easterners than to Northern Europeans. Another issue is that not all Near Eastern populations are the same. Within the Middle East, Anatolians are closer to Southern Europeans than other Middle Easteners are.

"I've always thought there should be more discussion of German-Americans on this blog. They've been the largest ethnic group in the U.S. for much of American history, and they form, I believe, the broad core of white intelligence in the country."

In the last twenty years, these Oscar-winning movies featured Celtic characters as protagonistics - Titanic, Braveheart, The Hurt Locker, Million Dollar Baby, The Silence of the Lambs, The Departed, Unforgiven, No Country for Old Men, Forrest Gump. Hell, even when an Oscar-winning movie is made about a mathematician (A Beautiful Mind), the lead character is from West Virginia.

"As for California, even in the good old days California was more like Oklahoma outside the major metropolitan areas. Now its Oklahoma crossed with Tijuana with a strong trend toward the latter. Buenas noches, y'all!"

Ha, that brings back memories.

In the early 80's I attended a private boarding school.

My history and geography teacher had been to nearly every country and showed us slides from his travels. Anyway, when he was documenting the hellish conditions in the Soviet republics, he would say that the place, "wins the contest for 'Make your city look like Tijuana."

He was the first teacher I had who told us that the way things were going neither the US or USSR would "win" the cold war. Rather each would become more like the other.

Point is: as our society gets more college graduates, southern-style racial politics is not the wave of the future; and believers in HBD as a political imperative need new modes of discourse."

My point is that when there were only 10% with degrees, most were men with real useful education. The higher the percentage goes, the more people there are with useless degrees that only represent longer and more thorough indoctrination.

Point is: as our society gets more college graduates, southern-style racial politics is not the wave of the future; and believers in HBD as a political imperative need new modes of discourse

Actually women with college degrees are less likely to reproduce than women with lower levels of education therefore I don't think that college grads are going to be as important a factor in America's future as you seem to think they will be. In a hundred years, the average American - if the United States still exists - will probably be less intelligent and less educated than Americans of today.

Wasn't it you, Steve, who displayed a map of the McCain vote overlayed with a Scots-Irish ancestry map and noted that his support was highest in Scots-Irish heavy areas?

IIRC, I believe the map actually showed that the Scots-Irish areas are the only ones that voted more Republican in 2008 than in 2004. Given the disaster that was the GOP in 2008 this was quite an accomplishment.

nevada in 1960: mineral engineers getting silver out of the ground, nuclear engineers testing fission devices in the desert.

"Even if "Nordic" Europeans have an IQ on average just a few points higher than those of Southern/Atlantic Euros, does that really make that big of a difference or is it in any way significant to HBD the same way the black-white or black-asian IQ gap is?"

the evidence says yes, although i am not sure how a 5 to 7 point difference creates such a huge gulf. the northern europeans utterly dominate the southerners in science and engineering ability. check that old HBD standard, nobel science prizes. where are the southern europeans? a few guys from italy and that's about it. or note for instance, that both ferrari and lamborghini are based in northern italy, near the alps. beretta, the firearms company, is likewise from the north of italy. of course, the germans own lamborghini now.

there's also a similar difference in size and strength from south to north, and again from east to west. southern europeans are rarely huge and super strong, and the english are famously skinny. but start moving west, or north, and the people get bigger. strength sports capability tracks fairly closely with this east-west/south-north geography.

um, you guys do know that most europeans in the US are ancestors of people who were losers in europe? successful people in europe did not immigrate to america at nearly the same rate as the people looking for work or an opportunity they did not have in europe. this is one of the main reasons why euro americans in the south are dumber. they primarily moved there to farm, which requires not much brainpower. there was more industry in the north, which is where, on average, the smarter european immigrants went.

it's hard to conceptualize this today, but the united states was an agragrian nation for most of it's history. up until 1920 or so, in fact, america was mostly a backwater, and hardly a world leader in anything but open space and undeveloped land. it was not a technologically inclined place with the best universities and laboratories and factories in the world. none of that existed. in fact, half the nation was barely participating in the industrial revolution. america has been the most dominant nation on earth for less than 80 years, a single lifetime.

"I excluded South Dakota because the result was too different from North Dakota."

South Dakota has a large Indian population as well as a different white demographic. Most of North Dakota is Scandinavian and German while this is only true in far eastern South Dakota. The rest of South Dakota is similiar to Wyoming or Montana.

I'm assuming that's (Ala) not (O)bama. Mississippi is poorer than Alabama, not necessarily dumber. Going from the straight comparison with average white and black IQ and demographic weighting, there's about a 5 point IQ gap in Mississippi's favor. Why were Alabaman whites or blacks or both dimmer?"

Of course it's (Ala)bama and not (O)bama hah.But I'm not sure why they were dimmer...And the poorest states do typically have dumber populaces...I don't believe it's the case anymore though, just compare a few educational stats and Mississppi pretty much always comes out on the bottom of the pile for the entire nation. Alabama is not up there, but is usually 4-8 places up from Mississppi. I suppose it's also possible that all the smarter whites who used to live in MS a few decades ago have moved out because the state economically stagnant, even compared to it's Southern neighbors.

"um, you guys do know that most europeans in the US are ancestors of people who were losers in europe? successful people in europe did not immigrate to america at nearly the same rate as the people looking for work or an opportunity they did not have in europe."

Um, are you high?

The Puritans on average lived 25 years longer than the average Brit and New England was the first place in history to have a 95% literacy rate. These people were hardcore, intelligent, self-disciplined zealots with the highest fertility/child survival rates ever. Imagine the ego and self confidence to come tame the wilderness and establish themselves as patriarchs of a "New World".

Even the "huddled masses" of the early 1900's had enough initiative to save their money for a boat ride to America and the future orientation to work their asses off for the sake of their children. They weren't coming for welfare because there wasn't any.

No, sorry, the "losers" stayed in Europe and like lemmings died at places like Verdun.

up until 1920 or so, in fact, america was mostly a backwater, and hardly a world leader in anything but open space and undeveloped land. it was not a technologically inclined place with the best universities and laboratories and factories in the world. none of that existed.

Not true. In Theodore Rex and Wikipedia, the US became the highest GDP country in the world by 1900 surpassing the UK in 1875.

Excuding the British Empire in Aggregate, it was fourth in 1870 after China, India and the UK (China and India being inflated by their tremendous size advantage).

I suppose it's also possible that all the smarter whites who used to live in MS a few decades ago have moved out because the state economically stagnant, even compared to it's Southern neighbors.

My dad grew up in Miss. in the 50's, he's bright and got out of there really fast. He says it was basically antebellum. Black people were called sharecroppers, but effectively they were slaves. Maybe proportionately more white Mississippians were professional-managerial class and so subject to more selective pressure for intelligence?

With cheap domestic "help" middle class on up women probably have more kids than they would otherwise. Without nearby cities drawing off smart rural people for economic opportunities and reduced fertility, Mississippi might have avoided some selection for lower IQ.And of course, I should have said before I asked anything, I don't know if the 5 pt gap is real. Could just be biased samples.

"Got a problem with Celtic intelligence bro? The Scottish Enlightenment was started by a certain group of people!"

Agreed. All the "Germans" (who probably aren't even as German as they think) on this board are amusing with their Southern-Euro bashing and now Celtic-bashing too. One might even make the argument that Britain became a vast empire because of it's racially mixed stock. Most Brits/Scots/Welsh/Irish are a mix of varying degrees between: ancient Neolithic peoples from the Iberian peninsula (similar to Basques), Celts, Saxons, Norsemen, and Normans. Despite their numerous contributions to the sciences in the past couple of decades, Germany hasn't had the same cultural impact on the world as Britain or even France/Italy....

"Just face it: German-Americans are boring."

Not on an individual level of course but they do lack the romanticism that other groups possess I suppose. The midwest hasn't exactly inspired as many movies/books as the mostly non-german regions of the deep South or New York.

"One might even make the argument that Britain became a vast empire because of it's racially mixed stock."

Sure, one could make that argument, but it would be BS as is most "diversity is strength" arguments. The bottom line is that all whites aren't created equal. It's a inconvenient fact for white nationalists, but it's one that should be dealt with honestly.

"Despite their numerous contributions to the sciences in the past couple of decades, Germany hasn't had the same cultural impact on the world as Britain or even France/Italy...."

You seem to be disjointedly measuring culture in a very middlebrow and arbitrary way (past couple of decades). I don't get it. Do the Beatles confirm British (English) intelligence? Ethnic Germans have contributed massively to high culture, most disproportionately in classical music, which is perhaps the pinnacle highbrow culture. (Incidentally, classical music is an area where Brits barely register). Similar to the English, French, and Italians, the Germans have given the world, within the last few hundred years, now extremely ubiquitous things like beer, hamburgers, and Christmas trees.

"Just face it: German-Americans are boring. Not on an individual level of course but they do lack the romanticism that other groups possess I suppose. The midwest hasn't exactly inspired as many movies/books as the mostly non-german regions of the deep South or New York."

Is that your final argument? It's amusing when lesser whites adopt the rhetoric of NAMs to defend themselves against allegations of inferiority. Blacks have long joked that whites are hopelessly boring compared to them, with some justification. What exactly does this prove?

The person identifying himself/herself as "low, low, low Irish IQ" seems to believe that Italians have a high IQ.

The person identifying himself/herself as "average Joe" seems to believe they are a mindreader.

I (originally) said nothing about Italian IQ. I did> comment that the Irish Larry Auster is dumb as a stone, and as ignorant, for flatly stating - in pompous tones of assurance - that most "Italian-Americans" are of northern Italian ancestry, when this is manifestly not the case. And, which can be ascertained by a quick investigation of US immigrant data through google, nevermind more detailed investigation in original documents. Indeed, the only place I've ever read that "most 'Italian-Americans' are of northern Italian descent" was at the Larry Jr's blog. A statement as consistent with reality as saying that most "African Americans" are from Ethiopia, or that most of the English settlers of America were Roman Catholic.

Second, Tuscans show more "Middle Eastern" affinity than do Sardinians in autosomal studies, never mind the NRY and mtDNA data. But it is low nevertheless.

1990 is 20 years ago. All measurements of achievement, education, and income nationwide show "Italian-Americans" as roughly comparable as the white average. This is not consistent with Lynn's "estimates."

That's why McAuster and company were so intent on "proving" that "Italian-Americans" were mostly of "northern" origin - since the data for the USA do not support Lynn's "estimates" - unless one invokes selective migration.

um, you guys do know that most europeans in the US are ancestors of people who were losers in europe? successful people in europe did not immigrate to america at nearly the same rate as the people looking for work or an opportunity they did not have in europe.

Successful people didn't leave Europe because they didn't need the money. Poor people didn't leave because they didn't have the money.

OK, so maybe that's a bit simplistic, but America had a fair share of smart and well-educated immigrants: the Puritans were from extraordinarily well-educated, mostly East Anglian stock, while the upper class, Protestant French Huguenots, were extraordinarily bright. In the 19th Century America was more than holding its own technologically, and even most of the early 20th Century inventors of reknown were from founder, not immigrant, stock.

Besides, in the 17th-19th centuries, poverty was a bit more about circumstance and involuntary culture than it is today. Today, opportunity to move up is available to almost anyone.

If you need some brushing up on just how intelligent the Puritan population was, read David Hackett Fischer's book Albion's Seed.

Besides, historically, smart people are the ones who move to seek new opportunities. Dumb ones tended to stay put.

My impression is that the vast majority of Italian-Americans are of southern origin (I don't know where Italians on the East Coast came from, but here in Washington state, the biggest group seems to have come from Calabria.)

As for the statement that southern Italians are more closely related to Middle Easterners than to Northern Europeans, that is partly true and partly false, depending on which group of Middle Easterners you are referring to. The "Middle East" is nearly as big and just as vaguely defined as Europe (and even more diverse in terms of population genetics and histories).

The majority of Greeks and central to southern Italians are more closely related to Anatolians (e.g. Turks, Armenians) than to people from, say, Holland or Denmark, but it is unlikely that the Southern Europeans (or even many Anatolians) are closer to, say, Saudis or Yemenis than to northwestern Euros.

Italians in general are well within the European genetic cluster, not far from other Mediterranean Europeans. Studies done on Americans of unmixed European ancestry show Italian- and Greek-Americans clustering together, which makes sense given the history of southern Italy. Other studies indicate northern and central Italians are relatively close to Iberians.

On the other hand, Italy seems to have one of the most genetically heterogeneous populations in Europe. Anecdotal reports from 23andme and other personal genomics projects suggest there are some southern Italians who come close to falling within the Middle Eastern cluster, and studies have found others who cluster more closely with western and northern Europeans than with Greeks or even most of their countrymen.

"You seem to be disjointedly measuring culture in a very middlebrow and arbitrary way (past couple of decades). I don't get it. Do the Beatles confirm British (English) intelligence? Ethnic Germans have contributed massively to high culture, most disproportionately in classical music, which is perhaps the pinnacle highbrow culture. (Incidentally, classical music is an area where Brits barely register). Similar to the English, French, and Italians, the Germans have given the world, within the last few hundred years, now extremely ubiquitous things like beer, hamburgers, and Christmas trees.

Is that your final argument? It's amusing when lesser whites adopt the rhetoric of NAMs to defend themselves against allegations of inferiority. Blacks have long joked that whites are hopelessly boring compared to them, with some justification. What exactly does this prove?"

I'm not one of those "Diversity is strength people" (Although I really don't have a problem with Asians or a few smart non-ghetto NAMS)....But there is nothing wrong with a little bit of diversity among closely related or ideologically similar groups (various Europeans in this case) I suppose technically I don't know whether a racially mixed stock is the reason behind Britain's success as an empire in the 19th century or its enormous cultural impact. But there's nothing wrong with speculating-it's as good of a reason as any equate me to them either. And I simply don't understand why you are disputing the fact that Britain and France (Italy /Germany/Spain to a lesser extent-) were the primary forces driving Western Civilization since the late Middle Ages? Of course I don't mean to bash German culture in any way either, I didn't mean to relegate it to a couple of decades...I'm well aware of contributions to high culture. Germany, along with Italy might have the most even though they both had less international influence than Britain/France/Spain.

And I take issue with your statement of "lesser whites?" By what standards, IQ alone? As I've stated before, Italy and Germany are measured as having the same average IQ (102).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations And the Danes and Norwegians who are arguably more Nordic/homogeneous than the Germans anyways average around 98....Your explanation? All ethnic Europeans are pretty similar genetically (despite outward differences in phenotype) so there really isn't much of a point to boasting over minor differences in IQ.

And I'm not claiming Germans area boring: but you can't really deny the fact that they aren't exactly romanticized in popular American culture (even pre-multicult era) to the same extent as say, the Irish or Italians. Not that being romanticized as a group proves much though, I agree with you on that.

"My dad grew up in Miss. in the 50's, he's bright and got out of there really fast. He says it was basically antebellum. Black people were called sharecroppers, but effectively they were slaves. Maybe proportionately more white Mississippians were professional-managerial class and so subject to more selective pressure for intelligence?"

This is probably true. Alabama has a larger proportion of whites, particularly in areas outside the "Black belt" region, Mobile, and Birmingham. Most of the rural areas in North Alabama are 90 plus percent white, so Mississppians were probably an entirely different population of settlers I assume.... although I suspect many of the smart Mississippian whites have moved to bigger cities in neighboring states, or to Atlanta, where just about everyone seems to end up (at least temporarily).

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